Tonight Theresa May and her husband Philip May appeared on the BBC One Show together – providing a major personal boost for the PM during the General Election campaign.

Last month Byline carried a story about the Cabinet Office being asked to investigate an issue that is very close to home to both of them – whether there could be any conflict of interest between her role as Prime Minister and his role as a senior investment manager of the Capital Group, which moves billions of pounds every day in the money markets.

The question is important – not because there is any evidence that either Theresa or Philip May have abused that relationship to make money – but because the Whitehall rules are still pretty lax in ensuring that there is full transparency despite fine words in the Ministerial Code of Conduct.

As it says :“Ministers must ensure that no conflict arise, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests.”

I raise this because last month the Cabinet Office insisted that there was no investigation into this and that “The Prime Minister has declared in full her interests and the interests of her husband.”

That reply covers a multitude of sins because the same code allows nothing to be declared by Theresa May if she puts her investments in a ” blind trust” and leaves it to the trustees to invest. Similarly her husband Philip need only declare very basic information because such details “would involve unjustifiable intrusion into the private affairs not only of Ministers, but of their close family.”

I also raise it because the Cabinet Office seemed unduly sensitive about this inquiry. I am told by another media source that it privately briefed that not only was there no investigation but there was no email correspondence about such a complaint or response from the Cabinet Office about it.

I have double checked my sources and indeed discovered a civil servant from the Cabinet Office did acknowledge the complaint and promised to examine the issue after it was pointed out that billions if not hundreds of millions of pounds are involved in currency movements depending on speculation on Brexit. I won’t embarrass the civil servant by naming the person on this site as I know the source won’t want to be identified.

This leads me to one conclusion. If the Conservatives do win the election, for the next two years the money markets will be desperate to know the state of Brexit negotiations – as there are hundreds of millions if not billions of pounds to be made by having an ” inside track “.

Therefore I think declarations by ministers and their close relatives – given the close connections between the City and prominent Tories – should be made much more transparent. This is one for Lord Bew and the Committee on Standards in Public Life but it needs to be sorted quickly.